The Ohio Democrat. (Logan, O. [Ohio]) 1886-1906, 1887-06-11
FACTS ABOUT SHARKS.



HideousIy Ugly Monsters.
There are not many ways of destroy
ing the dreaded sea-tiger To harpoon
1t requires practiced eye and cum
ming hand. The vessel, moreover,
should be motionless, and the shark
moving within reach of the harpoon-
er's muscle. The lump of beef or pork,
the large hook connected by n chain to
the line, the adroit paying out of the
bait-this is the old-fashioned device
by means of which many thousands of
the sailors enemy have been caught,
and then returned to the deep in frag-
ments, to serve as food for other
sharks. But this method of fishing is
not sure. The creature often escapes
after gorging the hook. TO make his
destruction certain, the sailors some
times blow him up.
On the 14th of July, while an Eng
lish ship was lying off Port Natal, sew
eral huge sharks, some of them more
than fifteen feet in length, were seen
sweeping under the vessels counter
and along her sides. A hook was baited
and thrown overheard, and was imme-
diately swallowed by one of the biggest
of the fish, which quietly cut the line
with its teeth, taking no further notice
of it. Then the breast of buck was
weighted, that it might sink; and in
side of it there was placed charge of
gun-cotton, and the whole connected
by wire with an electric battery. No
sooner had the venson touched the
water than the shark made straight for
it; but Just rs he opened his mouth to
swallow the bait, the charge was cx-
ploded, and the jaws were completely
shattered. The monster turned on its
back. and sunk in the bay.
The shark family is large one, and
most of the species are hideously ugly.
A few have kind of fierce beauty
about their shapes. Such is the fin
tail. whose color is cinerous, streakcd
in some parts with red and dotted with
small black spots. Such, too, is the sea-
fox, as it used to be called, found in
the Mediterranean, and remarkable for
the great length and fine proportions
of its tail, the body being about seven
feet, and the tail six feet long. But
the horror of the deep is the white
shark, which is often thirty feet long
and weighs four thousand pounds. 1t
has a mouth furnished with Il skiold
row of teeth, flat, triangular and finely
serrated. When this shark is in a state
of repose these dreadful teeth lie fiat in
the mouth. but when it seizes it's prey,
they rise like the tabled growth of
deadly weapons from the soil.
1t is not surprising that out of this
merciless companion of the mariner
many quaint superstitions should have
risen. For ages the seamen have viewed
the shark as n creature of ill-omen.
They believed that it could scent Il VIC
tim even though he should be perfectly
well, and without suspicion of his death
being close at hand; and that it would
follow ship that had dead body in
her for leagues and leagues. In Cey-
lon there are people who believe in
shark-charmers, called Kudal or Tim
NAL, which signifies sea-binders." :"
These magicians are employed by pearl
divers to protect them while under
water. There is n head wizard, pen
stoned by the Government, to whom
every boat gives ten oysters daily.
Among certain tribes in the South Seas
the shark used to be worshiped under
the title of .Joujou. Its votaries sacri-
feed rabbits to it; but knowing its APP
petite, once u year they bound a child.
ten years of age, and decorated with
flowers, to a post on the beach, at low
tide, and then left it to be dcvoured by
Joujou.- Yomh's Companion.